Last night, Sony took off Cyberpunk 2077 – the most anticipated video game of the year with a long view – from the front of the PlayStation 4 digital store. Anyone who bought the game on the console over the past week from its next release date will receive it. compensation. This is an unparalleled move, and the latest chapter in Cyberpunk’s awesome, awesome, unassuming, very good launch. In the fastest time, the game has shifted from Game of the Year candidate to international pariah – fan rebellion, internal turmoil, and cross-body controversy as a result of several moves of game-breaking , technical issues withering, and graphical failures present in the versions released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It is a complete lie; one that will still have a far-reaching impact on all parties involved. When you examine the timeline, it is clear that it did not have to be this way.
CD Projekt Red, Polish studio behind it Cyberpunk 2077, with a rare reputation in the games industry. In 2015, the company released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which remains one of the most significant success stories in recent memory. This was where a straightforward, non-papal game played a part – based on a special series of fantasy novels! – managed to sell nearly 30 million copies worldwide. It’s easy to see why: The Witcher 3 well-drawn characters, inevitable side quests, and perhaps more importantly, manage to run reasonably well on the PS4 and Xbox One despite hefty system requirements. Suddenly, CD Projekt Red was transformed from a humble independent center in Warsaw to one of the most respected studios in the world – able to handle Netflix deals with Henry Cavill.
The public waited with bated breath to see how the company was going to accelerate that accumulated goodwill in their next project; a sci-fi set set in the universe set by the legendary board RPG, Cyberpunk. After a trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 debuted at the 2018 edition of E3, the hype reached an ear piercing record that is unusually seen in the gaming community. CD Projekt Red appeared in the financial money that comes with a good build. In total, the studio recorded something like 8 million preorders before it was released.
When you look at that trailer now, it’s easy to see why the public was so irritable. CD Projekt Red promised a perfect re-creation of the grimy, neon Cyberpunk aesthetic – a world that gamers have wanted to explore for generations. The company backed up that clip with a series of long, unedited play videos, later confirming that there was some steak for its sizzle. No one had any doubt that the company would continue; after all, he had his bona fides from The Witcher 3 in his back pocket. But as we got closer to it Cyberpunk 2077when it was released, cracks began to appear.
The first red flag appeared in September, when Bloomberg reported that CD Projekt Red was pivoting to a crunch record to get the game over the finish line. Crunch refers to an audited business practice in the industry that typically includes mandatory overtime and long weekend transfers to meet an upcoming shipping deadline. This is one of those unfortunate tenures from the game’s unregulated Wild West era of the game industry, and many studios have implemented measures to strengthen a healthy office environment. CD Projekt Red, on the other hand, imposed mandatory six-day work, a year after promising to avoid these flawed work practices altogether. This raised two important questions: (1) Isn’t it ironic to publish a game about craven physical referrals while stealing days away from your employees? (2) If you need a crunch to finish a game that is supposed to be out in a month, does that go well for the end result?
Naturally, shortly after that Bloomberg report, CD Projekt Red delayed the Cyberpunk 2077 release date to December 10. The third delay in the life cycle of the game was: Initially, the company was aiming for April 16. That then moved to September 17, and then 19 November, before the latest. This in itself was not a major concern. Games will be delayed all the time, and COVID’s epidemic seems to have hampered development in countless studios. (Halo: Infinite, another hot-awaited video game that was supposed to be out in 2020, was introduced by Microsoft into the 20.1 window.) But since that December 10 date was coming closer, and review copies began circulating throughout the media, game critics were surprised to find that the company was only distributing the PC code. Kotaku said it has requested Projekt Red CD many times, unnecessarily, for the versions prepared for the Xbox One and PS4. As a result, all of the game’s original review scores reflect the experience of modern high-powered game CPUs, replacing a pair of consoles that first landed in 2013.
According to most accounts, the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 playing reasonably well. It’s still buggy and prone to crashes, but none of those issues break back, and the Metacritic score reflects that. The PS4 and Xbox ports? Another story. Shortly after its release last week, as players around the world got their hands on the hottest game of the year, the internet began billow with angst about how catastrophically the game is performing on these basic consoles. (The software outperforms the newly released products, and still finds it very difficult to find PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. There are reports of chaotic drops in frame rate, muddy video solutions, and infamously, a deluge of weird glitches. how a car drives straight through a house without finding a hit, or how a character’s face looks like a mosaic of unloaded texture. Gamers fall through the floor; they watch vehicles spawn out of shallow air; NPCs are attached to their observatories. The community has learned to put up with an appropriate level of jank in big, open, but games Cyberpunk 2077 over the Rubicon. The fiction is in the Cyberpunk The board universe sets up a series of subterranean misgivings against the great forces of physical greed, and ironically, revolution was now at hand.
On December 14, four days after their release, CD Projekt Red issued a statement atoning for the broken state he entered the game. “We’re sorry you didn’t show the game on last-gen consoles before it first appeared and, as a result, not let you make a more informed decision about your purchase. , ”He read. That alone is a nuclear revelation, because it means that the management of Projekt Red CD knew, in depth, that this backlash was coming. The statement continues to vote to keep the PS4 and Xbox versions in a more playful state by slashing away the technical issues with a blanket of paddles – which will no doubt show up through a ton of extra work through the holidays. Dissatisfied buyers are usually asked to repay their copy Cyberpunk 2077 through either the digital retailer or the physical store that purchased it, which the company is not authorized to do. Sony, in particular, has a strict refund policy for downloaded content, which meant that a number of gamers, powered by a command named CD Projekt Red, were sent in upon arrival PlayStation customer support looking to recoup their costs. This new app, where Sony allows refunds and also cleansing Cyberpunk from the servers, feeling a bit like a redirection to the Projekt Red CD transmission.
That brings us so fast. The future of Cyberpunk 2077 still uncertain. The games industry is home to several comeback sagas. Four years ago, the space exploration game Human sky celebrated with a concert by the crowd, but the studio behind it worked long and hard to change the story. At this year’s Play Awards, Human sky he won the award for Best Continuing Match, which was unbelievable recently. It is good to believe that the same race may be waiting Cyberpunk 2077; that this last legacy is not the final legacy. But the flailing anomaly evident in Projekt Red’s main bronze CD will not be so easily forgotten. How quickly the tide has turned on one of the best clothes in the industry. Morality is here forever for any fandom: Incredible hype brings incredible disappointment. The leaders of CD Projekt Red have a lot to answer – for customers, employees and critics alike. They should start by taking a long look at the mirror before moving on.